CHAP. excluding him, and consequently exposing him unsupXXVIII. ported to the overwhelming force which Austria and Bavaria led immediately against him.*

The obsequiousness of Luynes and the Brularts to the House of Austria and the Catholic cause in Germany, suggested to the Duke of Ferrara, the Spanish Viceroy of Milan, that it would be a favourable opportunity for driving the Germans from the Valteline, and securing thus the only passage for troops and ammunition between the Milanese and the Tyrol. A plot was laid, and the Catholics of the valley encouraged to rise and massacre the Protestants, who held political dominion over the valley. On the 19th of July, 1620, several hundreds of Protestants were sacrificed in the Valteline to the knives of the Catholics, when the Spaniards instantly marched to occupy the garrisons.† Even the French court was aroused by so atrocious an act, which menaced the Grisons, one of the cantons of Switzerland, most constantly its ally, and Bassompierre was sent to Madrid to protest. Reaching the capital about the time of Philip the Third's demise and the interval which elapsed before the formation of a new government, he succeeded in concluding a treaty, by which Spain promised to repair the malice and injustice of its viceroy.‡

The events of Germany and Italy were but too well known to the French Huguenots, who considered themselves involved in the general reaction. Met in assembly at Loudun in September, 1619, they forwarded to the court seven special demands.§ One was the maintenance

* Négociations de Duc d'Angoulême. MS. Brienne. As a proof how completely the French government was in Austrian interests, one has but to consult Brulart's letter to the envoys, of July 24, in which he fears lest the recall of the French army from the frontier, to act against the queen mother, might indispose

the emperor, as it had been especially sent thither to be useful to him and give weight to his cause.

† Mém. de Rohan. MSS. Dupuy, 400.

For Bassompierre's Spanish negotiations, see the Mercure, as well as MSS. Dupuy, 402 and 454.

Mercure Français for 1619.

of their town of surety. Lectoure, a principal fortress, which protected Bearn, had been lost to them by the conversion of its governor, Fontrailles. They prayed its restoration, and the appointment of two Protestant judges in the parliament of Paris, as well as the reparation for the losses of the church in Bearn and elsewhere. The court, then menaced by the queen mother's pretensions, promised to grant the demands, and at the same time not to enforce the ecclesiastical confiscation of Bearn, till the question had been more fully examined.

When the king advanced to Bordeaux, after the reduction of Angers and Pont du Cé in September, 1620, none of these requests of the Huguenots had been complied with. Yet Luynes, notwithstanding all that he had done in Bearn and in Germany against the Protestants, was still anxious to adjourn, if not avoid war, and remove its causes. He therefore proposed to grant the chief demands of the Huguenots, except that of leaving them the ecclesiastical property in Bearn, which he could no longer concede. He sent the Duc de la Force to conclude an accommodation on these terms.* The duke exerted himself sincerely to obtain them of the estates of Bearn; and sending word that he had succeeded, De Luynes ordered the retreat of the army. Whether from learning their withdrawal or from natural reluctance, the estates declined at last to sanction the transference of the property to the Catholics. The news of their stubbornness came to overthrow all the pacific arrangements of De Luynes, and to enable Condé to drag the king at the head of his troops into Bearn. There were no means of resistance. Louis entered Pau on the 15th of October, and not only compelled the estates to submit to his edicts, but to transfer the Church revenues of Bearn to those of the rest of France. Navarreins, the chief fortress of

*Correspondance De la Force.

CHAP.

XXVIII.

XXVIII.

CHAP. the principality, was seized and given to the command of a zealous Catholic. Louis the Thirteenth showed himself a Ferdinand the Second in Bearn.

The Huguenots considered themselves to have been overreached, not conquered. They did not expect the invasion, and declared it treachery after the promises given. The Mayor of La Rochelle, immediately on learning the king's act in Bearn, summoned a general assembly of the Huguenots for the 26th of the following month. The king issued an edict to prohibit it. But the assembly met notwithstanding, and proceeded, not merely to petition or protest, but to organise resistance, levy armies, raise funds, and appoint commissioners.*

This was open rebellion, from which the most considerable of the Huguenot grandees shrank. Lesdiguières declined the command which his co-religionists offered him; De Bouillon shrank equally from the civil war. The Duke of Rohan and his brother Soubise, with De la Fere and Chatillon, alone remained firmthe two latter being by no means reduced to extremities; and Chatillon, though he now was preferred to Coligny, only accepted command in order to act without energy, and to betray, rather than to encourage or defend, the Huguenots.†

All the military ardour of the young king was aroused by the provocation of the Rochellois. He raised troops, ordered taxes, and prepared to lead his army in person, greatly to the delight of Condé and zealous prelates. De Luynes, who could not face the storm, was determined to ride and to lead it. And to give himself that authority, which he had found to fail him in the camp, he obtained his nomination to the high office of constable. One motive for his grasp

*The acts and documents of the assembly of La Rochelle of 1620, are collected in MS. Brienne, 226. Its military organisation, or règlement

général, concluded May 10th, 1621, in forty-seven articles, was printed.

† Huguenot denunciation of Chatillon in Syned of Nismes, 1621.

ing it, and for the Prince of Condé's supporting his CHAP. demand, was the existence of a negotiation with Les- XXVIII diguières, which had been pending some time, the aim of which was to invest that veteran with the dignity of constable, in return for his adoption of Catholicism. Luynes defeated it, and adjourned the conversion and promotion of Lesdiguières, by taking the office himself.* The royal army marched south in May, 1621, its first act to indicating even loyal Huguenots what they were to expect. Duplessis-Mornay was tricked out of his command of Saumur, of which the king took possession. St. Jean d'Angely was then invested, and the Duc de Soubise in it was driven to capitulate in three weeks. Whilst Epernon blockaded La Rochelle, the king attacked and took Clerac, hanging the chief magistrate and pastor. In the middle of August the royal army encamped before Montauban.

Situated upon a lofty bank overlooking the Garonne and the Tarn, Montauban gives the idea of a place of great strength. But the chief attacks and defence during the famous siege were made upon and from within a little fortified suburb, that of Ville Bourbon, which lay beyond the rivers, and whose sole bulwark consisted in the breasts of the Huguenots who defended it. As the king and the constable were advancing to Montauban, orders had been given to disarm all the Huguenots throughout all the north and centre of France. The religionists deemed these orders the precursor of those massacres which the mob, in default of the authorities, were always ready to execute. There took place, therefore, a general emigration. The old men and the females departed for Switzerland or Sedan, whilst the young and strong men betook themselves to Languedoc, to stand in defence of their religion. These were the soldiers which the royal troops + Mercure Français.

* See a full account of the negotiations in the Mémoires de Deagant.

CHAP. XXVIII.

encountered on the bastion and in the breach of Montauban, and nothing could overcome their obstinacy and valour. In vain did the chiefs of the royal army set the example of daring: the Duke de Mayenne, the Marquis de Themines, perished, and the regiment of infantry, refusing to go to the assault-that of Toulouse, an ultra-Catholic city, melted away, and was no longer seen-the young nobles formed a battalion, and rushed to the assault of the Ville Bourbon. They gained the top of the bastion, and were for a moment victors; but the Huguenots returned to the charge, struggled with them on the bastion, and finally drove them from it, with the loss of a hundred of the best blood of France. There was no prosecuting such a siege; the blame of failure being left upon Luynes, who, indeed, did not display much bravery. Having assumed the office of chancellor ad interim, he was said to have employed, in sealing law papers, the time which others devoted to the assault. So, Condé declared Luynes to be an excellent chancellor in time of war, and an egregious constable in time of peace. Rohan having succeeded in flinging reinforcements into the town, the siege was raised in November, after having lasted nearly three months.*

The mortification caused by such a disaster, for the losses during the siege were enormous, alienated the king sensibly from the constable. He still, however, contrived to maintain his influence, and gave a strong proof of it, in obtaining the dismissal of Father Arnoux, the king's Jesuit confessor. As some amends for the failure before Montauban, Luynes caused the army to sit down before Monheur, which was captured and destroyed in December. De Luynes, harassed and disappointed, was here seized by fever, which, in a few days, carried him off, and spared him the fate of

* Relation du Siége. MSS. Colbert, 17; and Brienne, 227.